Synchrotrons are just a fancy type of particle accelerator. I’m not the world’s greatest physicist but, as far as I understand it, they are circular accelerators that use an electricity field to speed up sub atomic particles to something near the speed of light and a synchronous magnetic field to rotate the beam (hence the name). The resulting synchrotron radiation is a million times brighter than normal sunlight and a billion times stronger than your everyday X-ray – making it great for looking inside stuff. One of the first dedicated synchrotrons was built underground in Daresbury, UK, but…